‘He’s still that bogan from Gawler’: The rise of Travis Head

“Mum, I want to try cricket.”

“Mum, I want to try cricket.”

“Mum, I want to try cricket.”

Travis Head celebrates his century in the World Cup final.Credit: Getty Images

These were the words ringing in Ann Head’s ears every summer as she drove her son Travis past the local cricket club on the way to indoor soccer. Invariably, there’d be kids either playing cricket or training, and he wanted in.

Fed up with her son’s nagging, Ann stopped in so he could have a hit, hoping he would be told he was too little – and that would be the end of that. The last thing she needed was another activity on top of soccer, football and athletics.

“I’d had enough of him in my ear,” Ann recalled this week. “Travis is not a very big child, so I pulled into the car park, out we go.

“I wanted to take him there and for them to tell him he’s too small, come back next year.

Travis Head with his parents Ann and Simon and wife Jessica.

Instead, her son was put through a net session. Ordinarily, the odds would have been stacked in Ann’s favour. Her son was only six, and trying out for an under-11 side.

“We put him in the nets, and they came back and said ‘he’ll do perfectly well, he can hold his own, he’ll be alright’.

“I said ‘OK, thank you very much, now I have Saturday morning cricket, and Sunday morning athletics’.”

Travis Head and wife Jessica after the win over India.Credit: Getty Images

Australia owes a debt of gratitude to Ann Head, whose wide-eyed sports-loving son with what the French would describe as the joie de vivre became the toast of the nation this week after bringing down the powerhouse of the modern game, India, to deliver the country a record sixth men’s World Cup.

Head is Australian cricket’s newest hero. As extraordinary as his on-field deeds may seem, there is an element of the everyday man in the boy from Adelaide’s northern suburbs.

Yes, he has a $3 million home in Adelaide’s foothills, but fans can readily identify with his handlebar moustache, heavy hitting and love of a good time. The vigour with which he has celebrated hasn’t hurt either, nor too Mitch Marsh’s quip Head would struggle to recover in time to play in the first Twenty20. He missed the game.

“To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen my son drunk,” his mother said. “Now the whole world has seen him drunk on social media.”

Every club cricketer in the land would know of a teammate still yarning over a beer in their whites the morning after a flag, or in Head’s case the 2021-22 Ashes when he was booted off a rooftop bar after an all-night session.

Travis Head at 12.

He’s grateful too. When home, he often takes time out to support his local club, Tea Tree Gully, and mix with starstruck younger players, grateful for the club’s nurturing of him as a boy. Former coaches and teammates admire his humility and respect he shows for his roots.

Once when the Bulls had a first-grade bye, Head, by then South Australia’s captain, famously turned out on a matted pitch for another of his grassroots clubs, South Gawler. At a Bulls past players’ day last season, Head made the 40-minute drive from home to visit before an Adelaide Strikers game later that evening.

“He came into the change rooms and introduced himself to the younger guys playing,” Head’s first captain at first grade, Matt Weaver, said. “They’re in awe of Trav being there.”

As a kid, Head played soccer (indoor and outdoor) and football but cricket was his love; a passion that started, as many in his generation did, watching the likes of Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist. In his first game for the Craigmore Cricket Club, he didn’t bat or bowl, and fielded the ball only once.

“The smile on his face, I couldn’t believe it,” Ann said. “He was just ecstatic.”

Said his father Simon: “It was the best day of his life.”

The runs soon came. At age 10, he had caught the eye of no lesser judge than former Test spinner Peter Sleep from the Tea Tree Gully Cricket Club, which fields a team in Adelaide’s grade competition.

Sleep coached Head through his teenage years until he broke into state ranks as an 18-year-old. Nicknamed “Sounda″⁣, Sleep carved out a respectable 14-Test career as a leg-spinning all-rounder, mainly in the 1980s, but that may not have been his most important contribution to Australian cricket. He was the coach who advised Head to give up the gloves.

“I told him, I reckon you should give away the wicketkeeping and take up batting because there was only one spot for a wicketkeeper and six spots for the batting,” Sleep said.

Rising through the ranks from fourth grade as a 14-year-old to making his debut in first grade at 16, Head not only had to cope with the step up in standard but also navigate the challenges that came with being the young buck in the dressing room.

“When he started playing A-grade he was very quiet, like most kids brought into A-grade cricket they feel a little uncomfortable,” Sleep said. “He was no different to anyone else.

“After 10 games or so he knew what was going on, how to conduct himself. He was still reserved in the sense because there are blokes who had played a lot more A-grade cricket than he had. He knew when to keep his mouth closed and when to say something.”

Sleep knew Head was a future first-grade player the moment he made an unbeaten 24 on debut. As for higher honours, “you’re always hoping, but you never really know”, Sleep said.

Every player has a slice of good fortune in their rise to the top. Head’s father believes his son’s slice of luck came when another rising star at the time, George Horlin-Smith, chose football over cricket. Horlin-Smith was drafted by Geelong in 2010, paving the way for Head to be a project player.

“Next year [season], Chuck is looking for a young junior and Travis gets the gig,” Simon said. “Had George stayed in cricket, would he have got the gig? The door opened at the right time, but he took every one of those chances.”

Darren Berry, then coaching SA, threw Head a first-class debut in early 2012 as an 18-year-old. His first impression of Head? A “rough diamond”.

Travis Head emulated Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist by striking a century in a world cup finalCredit: Getty Images

“Kids coming through can be very entitled, Travis was never about that,” Berry said. “That had a lot to do with his upbringing. He didn’t come out of money, private school or anything like that. He was rough and ready. A rough diamond: that’s how I would describe him when I first met him.”

Head had not made a first-grade ton at that stage but had caught Berry’s eye with his pure ball-striking. When he was appointed the state’s youngest captain at 21, he had not made a first-class ton either.

“He hit the ball, and it thundered off the bat,” Berry said. “It was like ‘whoa, there’s something special here’.”

The former wicketkeeper’s fielding also left an impression – this, not so good.

“When he first came in, he was a horrible fielder,” Berry said with a laugh. “Couldn’t catch. I used to call him Edward Scissorhands. We spent a lot of time hitting him high balls on Adelaide Oval.”

It was time well spent. Head’s classic catch to dismiss Rohit Sharma was the pivotal point in Sunday’s final.

“The other night while I was commentating, whilst his hundred was brilliant, the catch off Rohit Sharma gave me a real smile thinking there’s the kid who couldn’t catch a cold, and he’s taken a bloody good catch at a very important context of the game,” Berry said.

Head’s early days at state level were not without disappointments. He debuted at a turbulent time for SA cricket amid a stretch of five bottom finishes in six Sheffield Shield seasons.

Four games into his second season, Head was staring at the axe after 55 runs in six innings. Backed in by Berry, Head struck a typical first-day seamer’s paradise at Bellerive. With temperatures in single digits, 13 wickets tumbled on a rain-interrupted day – all to pace. One was Head’s for a second-ball duck.

“They all looked at him in the change rooms as if you’re done,” Head’s father said. “A teammate said to him ‘what’s your plan for the second innings’? [He said] ‘If it’s on the stumps I’ll block, if it’s wide I’ll throw the kitchen sink at it’.”

Berry remembers the match with good reason. Head responded with a game-high 75 off 108 balls in a 15-run victory for SA – their first shield win in 21 games. Berry describes that game as the moment the penny dropped for Head.

“[He’d been] a bit stiff and trying a bit too hard,” Berry said. “Then he thought ‘f--- it, I’m going to play how Travis Head plays’.

“At times he gets out a bit loosely but to his credit he’s maintained that [his way] and been a match-winner because of it. I admire that he had the balls to do it in that Tassie game.

“I vaguely remember saying ‘we’re sticking with you, I believe in you, you’re the future but we really need something out of you’, and I think he just thought f--- it, I’m going to smack it.”

Head reached a similar crossroads in his Test career after being dropped in the series against India in 2020-21. Dumped in the 2019 Ashes when he was out bowled or lbw in six of his eight innings, Head came back with a tighter defensive game. His five-hour ton in the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand showed he could grind away but after failing to reach 50 in his next five digs the axe fell again.

“When he got dropped again he came back and said he tried it their way, I’ll now come back my way,” Simon said. “If I don’t succeed I’m not good enough, but I won’t die wondering, I’ll have a crack my way. Justin Langer would have backed that.”

Succeed he has. Since his return for the 2021-22 Ashes, Head is averaging 50 with a strike rate of 79, compared to 40 and 50 before that.

“The fact he had their support, we’re backing you in to be you, that was a massive turning point in his career,” Simon said.

Success, though, has not changed Head as a person. When Berry congratulated Head after his World Cup heroics, he received a warm message back reminiscing on the pair’s early days as player and coach. Head’s first captain at first grade Weaver can relate to the stories filtering home from India of the left-handed wonderbat’s post-match festivities.

“He’s been part of eight or nine premierships with Tea Tree Gully and each of them he’s given it a good crack,” Weaver said.

“There’s a lot of photos of him in whites at 3 or 4am and still looking to kick on. He’s got a lot of time for the guys he plays with – at all levels.

“He’s playing a significantly higher level of cricket now, but he still enjoys the success. That’s the best thing about him. If he got a duck, he’d still do the same thing.

“He’s a genuinely good fella, keeps it pretty simple, cares about his mates and family. Just one of those guys who hasn’t let success get to his head. He’s a classic. For a guy who has a lot going on, he never not replies to a text. He’s still that bogan from Gawler.”